Wife killer gets blue card

A DAD who beat his wife with bathroom scales and slit her throat with a box-cutter in a "crime of passion" on the Sunshine Coast is allowed to hold a blue card for tertiary teaching.

The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal has upheld a decision to let the 46-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect his child's identity, work with children and young people.

The Queensland Children's Commissioner fought the decision to issue a blue card, but QCAT dismissed the appeal.

A recently published judgment outlines how the man worked as a plumber in Brisbane, Laidley and Gatton before going to the mines in Western Australia as a rigger since his release from jail.

He now flies home one week in five to stay with his parents at Mudjimba.

QCAT member James Thomas said the man was charged with murder and convicted of manslaughter of his wife at their Mount Coolum home in 1995.

He said the man - who was sentenced to nine years jail and served just under six - then tried to commit suicide, unsuccessfully, by driving over a 40-metre cliff.

Mr Thomas said the man had applied for a blue card so he could teach or train at a TAFE level in rigging, scaffolding and plumbing.

"He has reached the stage in his life where he realises heavy physical activity will not be available to him forever, and wishes to use his 'brains a bit more'," he said.

Mr Thomas said the risk was not "a propensity to corrupt morals or take mental or physical advantage over young persons" but rather the danger of violent acts from control loss.

He said an important factor in upholding the decision to give him a blue card was his interaction with children in the past 11 years without any problems.

"I appreciate that references from friends and acquaintances may tend to reflect favourable preconceptions but they may also provide a useful picture of a person from layperson who have had the most contact with him," he said.

"Details of his community contact and interaction support the view that there has been a reasonably successful rehabilitation."

Mr Thomas found while a violent reaction to a stressful situation was a possibility, it was "remote".

"The positives would seem to outweigh the negatives," he said.

The Children's Commissioner had argued the man's incarceration had deprived his son of contact with him which was "contrary to the accepted best interests of children" and an attempted suicide, if he had been successful, would have results in an orphaned child which would have caused "undoubted harm".